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People have a right to ‘as much transparency as possible’ when it comes to doctors’ pasts, health minister says

Ontario Health Minister Helena Jaczek says the province’s medical watchdog should provide patients with “as full a picture” as possible of physicians’ disciplinary and criminal histories after a Toronto Star investigation found the public is being deprived of information about sanctions imposed in other jurisdictions.

“Obviously, I’m in favour of as much transparency as possible,” Jaczek said in an interview at Queen’s Park on Thursday. “I think that people have a right to know.”

Ontario Health Minister Helena Jaczek says there is “room to improve” when it comes to the information Canadians have available to them about their doctors. (Vince Talotta / Toronto Star file photo)

The Star’s 18-month investigation identified 159 disciplined doctors who have held licences on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, and used public records to piece together their disciplinary histories across provincial, state and country lines. Ninety per cent of these doctors’ public profiles in Canada failed to fully report sanctions taken against them for a range of offences, including incompetence, improper prescribing, sexual misconduct and fraud, the investigation found.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), the self-regulating body that oversees the province’s doctors, recently amended its bylaws to allow it to post some information about discipline imposed in other jurisdictions on its physician profiles. However, the college only posts sanctions imposed on Ontario doctors outside the province after Sept. 1, 2015.

Jaczek said the disciplinary information on the college’s website should be “retrospective.”

“If a physician has committed an offence in another jurisdiction previously, say, in the U.S., I don’t know why we couldn’t add that,” she said. “Obviously, the longevity of a (physician’s career) could go back 40 years, so one would want as full a picture as you could get.”

Considering the relatively small number of cross-border doctors with disciplinary histories, Jaczek said, “the workload in terms of importing that data wouldn’t be that onerous.”

“I think it does require a little more of a conversation potentially between the ministry and the CPSO as to whether they could enhance that website,” she said. “I think there is room to improve.”

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Jaczek said she won’t have an opportunity to discuss her concerns with the college before the June 7 election, but said the issue is “certainly on an agenda should we return.”

Speaking to reporters at a transit event in Etobicoke on Thursday, Premier Kathleen Wynne said the province has worked with the CPSO to improve oversight “but, in terms of the transparency, I think that is the question.

“I think we need to ask … is there more that needs to be done in terms of people’s ability to get information?” Wynne said.

NDP health critic France Gélinas said greater transparency by the CPSO should have been “mandated long ago.”

“The health minister must demand the physicians’ college posts all disciplinary measures that have happened to any of their members, no matter what jurisdiction it’s from,” she said. “We know full well that physicians move. The CPSO is there to protect the public. People expect that. Let’s meet people’s expectations.”

Earlier this week, Alberta’s health minister pledged to work with her province’s medical college to post information about sanctions imposed on its doctors by regulators in other jurisdictions. Sarah Hoffman also said she would review the college’s current practice of scrubbing all disciplinary details from doctors’ online profiles after five years.

Unlike in the U.S., Canada has no national agency that collects and disseminates licensing and disciplinary information on doctors.

The Star’s investigation found some Canadian physicians’ colleges keep secret basic information readily disclosed by other regulators. Quebec’s college, for example, told the Star that a physicians’ credentials — when and where they graduated from medical school — is confidential information. The secrecy of Canadian colleges is in sharp contrast to their counterparts in the U.S., where consumer legislation governs many medical boards and mandates openness.

Jaczek said there should be more “consistency” between medical regulators across Canada in terms of making disciplinary information public.

“I think it would be something that if I should be in this position (after the election) I would bring to that federal-provincial-territorial table,” she said.

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